The present disclosure relates to an alloy production method and an alloy produced by the same, and more particularly, to an alloy production method in which a mother alloy is used in casting, and an alloy produced by the same.
Alloys may be produced by adding an alloy element to a liquid molten metal and performing a casting. In producing an alloy using such a casting technique, the quality of molten metal has a great influence on characteristics of the alloy. Particularly, in the case where magnesium, aluminum or the like having a high oxidation property is added as an alloy element in a molten metal, a tendency that an impurity such as inclusion is increased in the molten metal by oxidation of the alloy element is shown. Such an impurity may cause degradation of alloys in view of mechanical and chemical properties. Therefore, in order to improve properties of an alloy produced by casting, it is necessary to maintain cleanness in the molten metal as high as possible. To obtain a high quality molten metal, a method of producing the molten metal in vacuum or a method of protecting a surface of the molten metal by coating the surface of the molten metal with a protection gas.
Meanwhile, in order to improve mechanical and chemical characteristics of an alloy, various compounds may be formed on a matrix of the alloy. For example, when an intermetallic compound having a high hardness is distributed on a matrix of an alloy, the intermetallic compound functions as a structure suppressing the movement of dislocations to improve the strength of the alloy. Such a compound may be crystallized as a thermodynamically stable phase while a liquid phase metal is solidified in casting, or after being solidified, precipitated through a proper mechanical processing or heat treatment.
However, in order to produce a molten metal in vacuum, an additional apparatus for maintaining vacuum is required, and a protection gas coated on a surface of the molten metal is expensive or may cause environmental problems. Also, it is difficult to control the amount or distribution of a phase crystallized during casting, and a mechanical processing or heat treatment should be accompanied in order to form a precipitate phase.